Last Sunday I featured a guest post here called, Struggling To Love Her, about the difficulty to sometimes love the church (small ‘c’ church … as in the local church). I was amazed at the responses I got, in terms of readers, but also in terms of personal comments, messages, emails). It is obviously a hot topic!
My inspiration, or guest was Amber Haines, who writes at www.therunamuck.com and www.incourage.me.
Toward the end of her post she said,
“Once in a while you find yourself in the arms of your broken church, and she looks exactly like THE church, and THE church looks like Jesus. It’s worth pressing on, going to commune with the homesick ones, going to find a hand to hold, a bag to carry, wine to taste.”
And it is here where I want to start … where is the struggle to love her?
I have heard it said that more than the style of worship, more than the way that scripture is delivered, more than whether the pastor wears gowns, or jean or a tie, more than the programs that a church offers, more than whether the coffee served is free trade …
the one thing that will decide whether a church will survive in the coming years is …
… is it real?
Are those welcoming people into the church service, welcoming from their hearts … or playing a part?
Is the pastor preaching from how God has moved in his life?
Are the people in the pews, in the chairs, prepared to take you home for lunch?
Are people using their God-given gifts to spread the good news of Christ’s love for them, to meet the needs of people in their community (not just those in their church community)?
Are people praying for each other, more than just Sunday during church?
According to Thom Schultz, in the book (Why Nobody Wants Church Anymore) he co-authored with his wife, Joani, the four top reasons why the majority avoids church are :
1. they feel judged … aka not perfect
2. they don’t want to be lectured … reminded they are not perfect
3. church people are a bunch of hypocrites … people who act like they are perfect
4. they feel God is irrelevant to their life, but they’d like to know there is a God and he cares about them … they know they are not perfect, and want to feel loved in spite of their imperfections
That all pretty much boils down to … they want what is
real
People, both Christ-followers, and Christ-deniers, want life to be real, want relationships that are real, want people to accept them for who they really are … want church to be real.
We are not living in the garden of Eden … perfect is left behind.
We humans, and our human lives, and our human churches are :
messy
dirty
wrecked
flaw-filled
sin-filled
And it is in being who we really are
(flawed, pimpled, grayed and scarred)
and being able to look at, and Sunday sit-with
others,
(who are just as wrecked as ourselves)
and feel, and be accepted … just as we are.
But, that is not all!
If we are being really real, we do not just love others as they are,
we love others enough to not leave them where they are …
in the mud, mire and dirt of life
in the dark, blindness and deafness of the present
in the middle of their mess, their heartache, their
sin.
We can be really real enough to stay with them, to support them, to do what is practical, and to do what is immaterial, spiritual. To do more than just keep their head afloat, but to also teach them to swim in stormy waters, when no lifeboat is in sight.
To point them to the lifeguard who is always on duty, and to remind them that we are His flotation device.
Come on church,
let’s get
itsawonderfilledlife 
Love REAL!!! ❤
[…] Why We Struggle To Love Her is bigger that expectations, and my goal in this post was to unravel some of the tangled mess of […]
So… yes. I agree. but why is the temptation to not be “real” so real? What keeps us back? Why is it so hard to constantly be “real”? It seems so paradoxical! It should be more of a struggle to pretend otherwise and keep up a joyful face than just be this elusive “real”. I sat here thinking, “I can’t be real too many places for too long because it would destroy me.” There are times in life when the unbearable is unbearable. If I live in that place too long I would die. Not physically, but my hold on what is true, what my foundational beliefs are would become slippery. I would collapse. So, “fake it till you make it”, becomes my motto. I sometimes wear the mask till I become who I know I need to be, until it becomes me. Then, with great joy, I have triumphed, or rather, God has triumphed. I have “taken on the full amour of God” – I grow into the armour, and it begins to fit me. I have become one more step closer to being Christ-like. It is then that I realize that my ‘real’ self is changing, and the reality around me can only be perceived through the grace-filter of Christ. Maybe, as we grow in Christ, it looks fake to those around us who don’t know who Christ is.
I think the being “real” is for a selective, safe group. I don’t want to live there, but I need to visit there to be bolstered again. Those who come to observe ‘church’ never enter a safe group. Those who come to ‘be the church’ find the safe group, the support group, the therapy groups where they can lay down their realities of life, and say, “hey, help me with this! Help me wear the armour so I can stand up during this wretched messy part of my life. Help me become someone I’m not.”
Maybe being “real” means, just as you say, we invite more people into our therapy groups where safety is a priority, and we strive to be who we aren’t – and it is messy as we strive to become Christ-like together. But, our growth groups, to be safe, are smaller cells of a much larger organism – organization, – called ‘the church’. Upon visiting a church, it’s hard to see the individual cellular structure. For a church to be a live, and functional body, it has to have healthy cells.
These are ramblings as I wrestle figuring life out. Sorry for such a long winded reply! Great topic!
Good morning Becky!
I love your thoughts! Many of which I am in the midst of thinking, pondering, investigating and learning from. I like the cellular comparison … the ‘body’ comparison, and it resinates with me. Ann Voskamp has said, “gratitude precedes the miracle” and I have been contemplating how often in life it is ‘after’ we change our thoughts, our heart and mind that the external changes around us … perhaps what you are saying is that we choose who we believe God wants us to be (our armour) and eventually our armour becomes who we ‘really’ are?
To be ‘real’ does take relationship, intimacy. Small groups within a church community can be the right environment for such to occur. Aging helps too … for we tend (I hope) to be more comfortable in our own skin, with fewer inhibitions about sharing ourselves to those around us.
This, these words spoke directly to me (as we, finally, chose a new church to call home, yesterday):
“Those who come to observe ‘church’ never enter a safe group. Those who come to ‘be the church’ find the safe group, the support group, the therapy groups where they can lay down their realities of life, and say, “hey, help me with this! Help me wear the armour so I can stand up during this wretched messy part of my life. Help me become someone I’m not.”
I may ask to quote you!
Thanks for the morning thoughts to go along with my coffee.
Carole